


apple of my eye

by PutinsNostrils



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: "are we dating???", Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Attempt at Humor, Aziraphale is blind, Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cheesy, Dating, Emotional Sex, Everyday Ableism, Gay Panic, Happy Ending, I know it's impossible to miss someone's blind, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Intimacy, Love Confession, M/M, Misunderstandings, Smut, Top Crowley (Good Omens), Useless Gays, bear with me, but Crowley's really stupid in this, idiot!Aziraphale, idiot!Crowley, just so you know, slight angst, soppy colour metaphors, this is also a flowershop AU, this is wacky and I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:08:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24864322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PutinsNostrils/pseuds/PutinsNostrils
Summary: Anthony J. Crowley has come to terms with the fact he was approaching his 50th birthday and hasn’t found his soulmate yet. He’s fine with it, absolutely uh-mazing. Wahoo, never been better.This curtain of delusion drops when he meets Aziraphale, some coot who’s more cushion than man with a questionable taste in walking sticks and also, incidentally, Crowley’s soulmate.Sadly enough, this doesn't seem to apply both ways as Aziraphale won’t mention any change in his vision after their first contact. If Crowley just wasn't this besotted with his angel, he maybe wouldn't overlook the obvious signs for as why Aziraphale wouldn't see any colour...-Soulmate AU in which you're able to see colour after touching your soulmate for the first time. Problematic if one of them is blind and the other an idiot.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device
Comments: 131
Kudos: 235





	1. a blind man and an idiot walk into a laundrette...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dontforget](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dontforget/gifts).



> I want to apologize in advance. This is absolutely wacky and stupid but if that doesn't fit Aziraphale and Crowley's label, I don't know what does dasudjwaidn
> 
> Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing and I'm planning to post every two weeks or so!
> 
> \----  
> Happy Birthday, mom! I know this is coming 8 months late, but well >>

_Pling._

**Ana, 7:48:**

> _Meet your **soulmate** today! Over **100** singles waiting to shake **your** hand!_

A little startled, Crowley averted his eyes from the grey swirl of his underwear spinning in the washing machine in front of him and instead grabbed his flashed up phone.  
He furrowed his brows, irritated with the incoming links filling the opened chat en masse.

**Ana, 7:49:**

> _ NEW!!! Compilation 2019 People meeting Soulmates in Public! #57 _

**Crowley, 7:49:**

stop

**Ana, 7:49:**

> _ 50 and without a soulmate? 10 empowering ways to paint your loneliness in new colours! _

**Crowley, 7:50:**

i will block you

**Ana, 7:50:**

_After you’ve spammed my mailbox last night with incoherent, drunk noises about how sad and nonexistent your love life is_

**Ana, 7:50:**

_I figured i’d give you a nudge_

Crowley uttered a sigh so weary, it must have come from the deepest corner of his lungs.  
Its volume made the only other person present in the little laundrette – a pouty elderly lady holding onto her leather purse as if her life depended on it – shift testily on the chair across the room.

**Crowley, 7:50:**

thanks but i’m fine

**Ana, 7:50:**

_Are you sure?_

**Ana, 7:51:**

_You’ll never guess what they put as number 7_

**Crowley, 7:51:**

sadly, i’m destined to never find out. I don’t have the time to read through this pseudo motivational shite

**Ana, 7:52:**

_You’ve already read the article, haven’t you_

His lips fell open and for a few seconds, he just stared at the screen before he decided to banish his phone and this conversation to his back pocket. 

Since his best friend has found her soulmate last summer, Anathema has aired herself as the most enthusiastic and altruistic advocate of love. Crowley would have been unreservedly happy for Anathema and that awkward, pale bloke of hers if that infatuated eagerness just wouldn’t have regarded his own private love life as its field of work.  
_La vie en rose_ sure was something else; holding more red flags for Crowley than rose-tinted glasses could hide. Figuratively speaking. At the moment, he felt too ashamed to polish his metaphors. 

Another sigh followed as he leaned back on the hard plastic rest, let his lanky legs sprawl out and started to massage his pulsating temples. The day had barely begun and yet, his Enchroma glasses had already given him a thudding headache on his drive here. The wan, dull excuses for colour substitutes have always been more curse than blessing for him but refraining from using them altogether was no adequate alternative. 

A society in which colours are a privilege to those who _made it_ never let you forget about that fact. 

For now, though, Crowley decided to leave them off, give his eyes a little rest before work. The grey, soapy whirl of his clothes accompanied by an instrumental cover of “Unchained melody” tootling in the little shop was as comforting as depressing. Even purse lady left. 

Perhaps, it could have been an ordinary Thursday morning.  
Perhaps, if everything would have gone its ordinary way, Crowley would have been sitting here for another twenty minutes, would have reread the _Women’s Health_ article about his empowered future as a slowly decaying, lonely twink, or just would have watched the laundry turn.  
Perhaps, his spinning boxers could have even inspired a profound inner monologue about the much dreaded invincible, unstoppable power of time and mortality. 

But instead, the delicate bells of the laundrette’s doors jingled their sweet song and a man entered, bringing a cold squall of early spring’s air inside with him. 

A very rude man, at that. 

“Excuse me?” he almost yelled into the room as if Crowley would have been ignoring him. “Do you know whether Mrs Reed, the…err, the salon’s owner is here?”

“I think she went out for a smoke a while ago.” Crowley didn’t look up from his laundry, making it the centre of his entire attention. 

“Ah, I see…Thank you,” the strange man mumbled unsure of his next move. For a while, he just stood there on his spot, awkwardly lingering, before he walked towards one of the washing machines next to Crowley’s. 

Crowley tried his best not to stare at him since they were the only two people in the room by now, and rather contemplated a new strategy in his texting war with Anathema that basically consisted of denial, distraction and _even more denial_. However, Crowley still caught sight of the swift movement of the stranger’s fingers brushing over the washing machine’s buttons and switches, and it made him sceptically raise one eyebrow. 

And as the impolitely vocal man eventually dropped a few coins with an almost comedically loud tinkling, so did Crowley’s façade of faux lack of interest in him hit the tiled floor. 

“Oh dear…” Crowley heard him fret and finally, the silky baritone tickling in his ears made him look up. 

Immediately, he noticed the cane in the man’s hand, got up from his chair and bended over to help him pick up his money.

“I got it, got it,” Crowley reassured the fussing stranger that was wringing his hands in front of his stomach, and simply put the coins into the machine’s slot himself. 

“O-Oh…Thank you! That’s too nice of you.” 

He sounded so glassy, so painfully genuine that it made Crowley wonder if he had ever actually received a thanks before. 

“Nah, not really.” 

“Well, it is,” he laughed softly even though a little agitated hitch resounded in his voice. “You see, that’s why I’m usually asking Mrs Reed to help me. Some things you’ll just never fully manage on your own. Rather embarrassing, that is.”

He wasn’t making direct eye-contact with Crowley. Denied of the visual access to the mirrors of his soul, Crowley’s eyes soaked up everything else they could find. Together with the curly, fair hair crowning his head like puffy clouds, the man’s attire looked like he had once tumbled from a cottagecore lesbian’s pinterest dashboard into a plush sofa shop and hasn’t recovered from that incident ever since.  
Crowley hated it as much as he considered it utterly charming. 

“Oi, don’t talk yourself down like that. I’ve been living for almost five decades now and still, I just recently made the painful discovery that you _really_ shouldn’t put dish soap into your dishwasher, so talk about being an incapable adult.” 

“Well, that must have been a…bubbly surprise.” 

“You could say that. Definitely didn’t feel all too bubbly about the swollen parquet flooring, though.” 

The man turned his face towards him. Shining down from the ceiling, the lamp’s light above them got caught by his eyes as he smiled at Crowley; they were glistening so expressively and kind, opalescent even without any splash of colour. Crowley cleared his throat. _That_ certainly made him feel bubbly. 

He didn’t wear any Enchroma glasses, though. And that didn’t leave too much space for interpretation. 

“Sooo…” Crowley stretched the vowel, mentally preparing for his blunt, interrogating attack. “I’ll take it you have no one to help you with that stuff in general? No partner, wife?”  
Crowley glanced to his bowtie.  
“…or husband?”

Sofa man reacted with an embarrassed smile to Crowley’s blatant attempt at flirting with him. 

“Not…anymore. Recently, I thought about getting myself a dog for my daily routine but I wouldn’t be capable of caring for the poor thing, regardless of my, well, condition. I’ve never particularly been a dog person in the first place.”

Crowley was confused. _Were laundry dogs a thing now?_

Admittedly, Crowley had been cryptic in his question, and the other probably referred to the feeling of being lonely. So, he decided to play along with the pet schtick. 

“Hm, I get it. Once, I impulsively got myself a snake after a nasty break-up. I guess I missed coming home to someone two-faced spitting venom at me the entire day.”

Sofa man laughed again, and it didn’t only cause growth in Crowley’s confidence but the slowly crinkling grin pulling on his lips. 

“Well, I wouldn’t compare a snake to a dog, I mean-“

“Yeah, Crawly probably wouldn’t have helped me with my laundry, that lazy thing.” 

Delighted, the other creased his face into an amused beam and he leaned his walking stick against the machine to reach out for Crowley’s hand. 

“My name’s Aziraphale. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?” 

“Crowley. Well, it’s actually Anthony but my friends mostly call me by my-“

Pink. 

Amid the alluringly mature grey carvings of Aziraphale’s face, peachy pink started to bloom all over his cheeks. Coy and reluctant at first, but then its rich intensity spread all over him, kissing him tenderly with cream and rose. 

His hand felt like it was melting into Aziraphale’s. 

“-…surname.”

Aziraphale giggled. “Your name’s Crowley and you called your snake Crawly?”

Crowley watched his clothes fill out with mellow beige, fawn, immaculate ivory-

“…yes?”

And as his locks were brushed with ash blonde, so beautifully complementary of the composition of his mesmerising being, Crowley’s eyes opened wide; full with shock, full with joy, full with the question as to why _the fuck they were still talking about snakes when they just discovered to be soulmates_.

And then it hit him hand in hand with the loveliest smiles of all. Together, they hit him like a bird that collided against a window and instantly broke its neck. 

Crowley wasn’t Aziraphale’s soulmate. 

That happened sometimes. Rarely. But it did. Obviously. 

Spiritual kinship didn’t follow determined, official rules and was rather just one of destiny’s generally benevolent whims. Granted, a whim that defined their entire society, the life aspiration of so many, but some people just weren’t cut out for it. 

Which was weird because the longer he looked into Aziraphale’s eyes – blue! His eyes were blue, so blue! – the surer Crowley grew that this colour was something cut out from his life just to be set back into its place, his heart. Something he didn’t know he had missed so desperately before it was right in front of him.

And it all felt so terribly, unbearably unfair. 

“So…uh, could you help me with the washing machine?”

Crowley blinked ponderously. 

“Um, sure…yeah, sorry.”

“If you could put it to 30 degrees for one and a half hour, I’d dearly appreciate-“

“Done.”

“Oh! Thank you! Thank you so much!”

Too lost in the vortex of his thoughts and emotions, Crowley barely reacted to those lively gasps and only smiled faintly with one corner of his mouth.

Soulmates. What did those labels matter anyway?  
His worth wasn’t determined through another person.  
He didn’t need any spooky cosmical bond to be a whole.  
He wasn’t broken, there was nothing to be filled in the first place!  
His parents hadn’t been soulmates, and it had worked out! _Kinda?_  
Yeah, of course, there had been the occasional argument, crisis, the occasional secretary in his mother’s sheets but-

“Mister Crowley?”

Crowley gulped.

“Uh, what, sorry?”

“I…err…I’ve just been wondering if I could make these inconveniences up to you somehow?”

“That was hardly any work, I-…”

The red on Aziraphale’s cheeks intensified. _Oh._ This wasn’t about the laundry. 

“You could treat me to some coffee while our laundry’s running?” Crowley suggested, feeling his heart beat in his throat. 

Aziraphale lowered his eyes, conflicted.

“I mean…Sorry, Aziraphale, I shouldn’t have assumed-…“

“No! No, I’d love to! I just have another appointment waiting for me now, but if you’d be interested in meeting some other time-…”

“Yes!” The amount of enthusiasm that came gushing with that quick reply made Crowley feel dizzy with embarrassment but with the way Aziraphale bashfully batted his golden lashes he seemed to share the sentiment. 

“Oh, good, I’m…good.” Aziraphale laughed relieved. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to being so bold, uh…initiating things. But it’s hard to tell for me what the person in front of me thinks if I’m not asking directly.” 

Crowley didn’t find anything wrong with that statement: Indeed, Aziraphale looked like someone introverted, someone who’d rather spend an entire day reading than asking out strangers. 

“You’re doing fine, don’t worry. And to your luck, I don’t mind being bold, so, how about lunch?”

“Sounds lovely.” At the prospect of a date in a restaurant, Aziraphale’s eyes sparkled with contagious vigour. “There’s this charming Italian place around the corner. I’ve been there a few times before, so that’d be easier for me. If Italian’s fine with you, that is…I mean, they do make a marvellous panna cotta-“

“Italian’s amazing, I can’t wait.” 

The exchange of the restaurant’s address and their phone numbers passed in the blink of an eye, and cruelly soon, Crowley found Aziraphale stalling at the saloon’s door again, weird crane in hand. 

“Well…till later then, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, not missing the chance to tilt his head for the sweetest glimpse of farewell. Crowley’s heart was soaring. 

“See you soon.” 

With that, the bells jingled again and Aziraphale vanished into London’s _colourful_ morning rush of pedestrians. 

And as soon as he couldn’t see him anymore, Crowley shoved his fingers into his hair, pulling on the strands in an overwhelmed frenzy and frantically looking around. 

Someone had forgotten his socks on one of the machines, yellow socks- Yellow, the colour he knew from sturdy sunflowers, from petite marigolds and sweet corn, from aromatic mustard and delicate dandelions. Up until this point, he had been convinced he knew the colour yellow and now it all seemed like a joke. 

He didn’t stop with yellow and continued to snoop around, marvelled at someone’s mint-coloured tulle curtains, a scarf brown as caramel, hell, even the tide pods now seemed so vibrant and tasty he wanted to pop one into his mouth-

Then, he found the fabric softener he had used for his own clothes, and as his eyes surrendered to that milky tinge of baby blue, his heart felt so heavy it wanted to drag his whole body to the ground. 

Blue, his eyes were blue. 

Crowley has found his soulmate, and he had blue eyes.

Crowley has found his soulmate and he wasn’t his.


	2. the way it fits

It’s been the amaryllis. 

Crowley knew something had been wrong with the bouquet since putting it on display yesterday. 

He hadn’t been able to pinpoint the exact issue he’s had with his creation, leaving him restless with annoyance; its existence had mocked him from its intangible distance, like an itch that was crawling from within, unable to be scratched. 

It hasn’t been the shape, the arrangement of architectural flowers or such, nor has it been the texture’s fault; the smooth black parrot tulips blended complementarily into the deep red calla lilies and the painted begonia leaves holding them together. 

But now, he finally understood.

It was the amaryllis. Rich burgundy, royal velvet in sturdy bloom that didn’t fit into the whole assemble. It was too loud, too intense, swallowing the other colours in one gulp. 

Crowley had spent the entire morning in his flower shop, simply _looking_ at his plants: He had been soaking them up with his eyes, marvelling at the innumerable shades of green alone, at their yellowish, delicate veins and their patterns (even forgiving the rarely encountered leaf spot just because it fed his insatiable hunger for more colours). He was gaping and staring, and yet, in the case of the amaryllis, Crowley was frowning. 

Red has always been a nice colour - even despite the nauseating veil of his glasses – but Crowley could have never pictured it to be so _much_. 

For all of his endeavour to appear as the aloof, mysterious yet notoriously cool and gay uncle, Crowley was a mere hopeless romantic who obviously had thought a lot about what it’d be like to find his soulmate, curating overly dramatic dissociative daydreams and fantasies about that particular moment for years. At the end of the day, however, he was as imaginative as he was realistic, and just a day ago, he had been pretty sure that most of the common depictions about colours and spiritual kinship must have been excessively exaggerated and romanticised. 

And now, he was glazing at the colour red, the bouquet standing like the most beautiful, astonishing thorn in his eyes on his counter, and felt like it alone had been the greatest gift he’s ever been endowed with. A gift he was dying to return to the person who gave it to him. 

For the first time, it wasn’t about his self-pity or the grief for his bygone, vain fantasies but about his compassion, about his entire being so smitten with amazement that he desperately wished to be Aziraphale’s soulmate just so he could _share_. Share it with eyes so kind and soothing, the memory of them alone blinded him with its sense of strange familiarity. 

Once again, the situation’s weight wanted to drag him down and into a fresh circle of apparently cosmically confirmed and endorsed self-doubt, but the customer opening his door and sheepishly peeking into the shop beat him to it. 

Crowley put the bouquet behind his counter, cautiously pushing the translucent vase of glass aside to deal with it later.   
In the meanwhile, the young woman had ultimately decided to enter the shop and walked about here and there a little bit, biting her lips and blinking at the flowers on the shelves as if the ranunculus offered her the missing courage to approach Crowley. (Much as Crowley liked to believe he could come off as intimidating, the little bun on the back of his head and the lime-green apron he wore did pretty much the opposite.)

“Can I help you or are you just browsing?” 

Startled like a child caught with their hands in the cookie jar, she flinched from the displayed bouquets and colourful buckets filled with loose flowers yet to be bound together.   
“Oh, err, yeah…” She pushed her Enchroma glasses up her freckled nose and made some small steps towards him. “I was wondering if you’d do arrangements for weddings?”

“I sure do,” Crowley answered and scanned the customer in front of him for the briefest of seconds before bending down and fishing a folder out of a cupboard. “Do you want the whole shebang or-…”

“No, no, nothing big, actually. Some table decoration and a bridal bouquet only, if that’s okay, of course!” 

“Uh, that’s more than just okay…!” He dropped the folder with older pictures, ideas, colour schemes and correspondent prices on the surface between them. “I suppose some congrats are in order? It’s your wedding we’re talking about, right?”

“Yes, yes, thank you!” she faltered, though seemingly warming up. “The wedding’s in, um, April.”

“April, April, April…” Crowley repeated, casually plopping his _p_ s in an attempt to take away a little of the tension the soon-to-be bride in front was spreading in decadent masses and flipped through the binder's pages. As soon as he found the right one, he marked it with a dramatic tip of his index finger. “Do you have something in mind already? Because I’ve read that this year’s apparently all about the reinvention of orange and all that and-…”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted him so softly he almost didn’t catch her protest.   
She bowed her head in shame, making her strawberry-blonde curls frame her cheeks. “This…I’m so sorry but I thought you’d be a _mono_ florist. I didn’t see a colour badge outside and…oh, this is embarrassing, but in this case, I won’t be able to afford this, I-…Pardon me for taking so much of your time!” 

_Right_ , Crowley thought to himself, _the badge, the glasses_. 

No wonder she’s been this stressed out from the start. With permanent news of old-fashioned, traditionalistic bakeries and florists refusing to deliver their services to non-soulmate couples it must have been bothersome enough to seek one out as it is but also have financial restrictions breathing down your neck? 

By law, artistic professions that were in some sort graphic or decorative could theoretically be practised by anyone. De facto, the general public’s consensus was that those jobs should be reserved to people who were actually able to exploit their full potential, and so, badges had been invented that would indicate if a craftsperson could see colour. It goes without saying that the badge wouldn’t only help you acquire a certain reputation but also allowed you to charge a sweet, additional fee. 

So when Crowley had pointed out that colour in front of him to be orange without wearing any glasses, she must have started panicking. 

She continued to apologise and duck her head more and more, Crowley feared she’d fall over her own feet soon. 

“Wait, wait, wait,” he shushed and used her confusion for an internal fight with himself that was quickly ended with the disarming sight of how nervously she clutched to her engagement ring. He chuckled nonchalantly. “You didn’t see any badges because there are none. You know, I open this old thing here day for day, I have the pages and colours memorised by now.” To back up his statement, he pulled his formerly discarded glasses out of the drawer he normally kept his bits and bobs in and demonstratively sat it on top of his head. 

“Oh…! I’m-…”

“So, no apologies and more flower talk, alright? I’m sure we’ll find something that’ll work for you.” 

And there it was, her first smile.  
“Yeah.”   
It spread all over her face, slowly opening up her mouth, eyes and heart like newborn petals, and in the end, she bloomed like a sunflower. 

He was sure the application for his badge could wait until this was done. Wouldn’t make that big of a difference anyway.

Anthony J. Crowley didn’t run.   
It was a matter of principle. Maybe he’d run when pigs would begin to fly. When the seven angels of the apocalypse would come down and deliver a soulful interpretation of _Careless whisper_ on their trumpets.   
As he came strutting down the street his mobile’s navigation feature had sent him, however, it was with such strain and tightness controlling his muscles, bypassers must have wondered if he was trying to press some carbon into a diamond between his buttocks. 

Usually, Crowley was all for the concept of fashionable lateness but he wasn’t meeting his soulmate, his unrequited match of destiny, for a spot of lunch _usually_ either. Thanks to a chatty customer, Crowley was now ten minutes late and speed-walking like never before; their shared fate was intricately cursed as it was, Crowley didn’t feel like challenging it further with any act of discourtesy.   
Instead, he finally crossed the street that separated him from the address given to him and as he looked up from his phone, his heart started to dance the world’s most jumbled cha-cha-cha. 

There he was, prim and proper, waiting under an elegantly curved arch leading to the restaurant’s entrance. Evergreen ivy curled around the dark iron, painting such a strong, luscious contrast to the grey spring day, Aziraphale looked like he was waiting at the gate to paradise. 

The operative word here being _waiting_.   
Crowley didn’t know if it was basic human empathy or another wicked side effect of spiritual kinship, but the closer he got to Aziraphale the more he was hit with an intangible waft of a sweet spice that took away his breath – in the most suffocating, unromantic way. Crowley’s never felt this sensation before but he simply knew it was the smell of anxiety and for once, it wasn’t his own. 

No wonder Aziraphale didn’t spot Crowley as he approached him: He seemed fully absorbed in his thoughts and worries. 

Crowley brushed a rebellious strand of hair behind his ears, stalling, and then eventually cleared his throat. 

“Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale swung his head around, gasping. 

“Mister Crowley?”

“Just Crowley, remember?”

Crowley’s presence caused a perceivable shift in Aziraphale, most noticeable in the bashfully amused smile he tried to hide behind his crème-coloured scarf. 

“Alright then, just Crowley.“ The chilly wind howled around them, and Aziraphale’s nose, cheeks and ears were glowing red. “It’s rather cold outside, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah.” Crowley’s hands were shaking but less for the actual cold. “I’m _so_ sorry for making you wait.” 

“It’s fine! I mean…at first, I was a little scared you had changed your mind.” Aziraphale tried to reassure him with a wry little laugh but the faintly pained glimmer in his eyes didn’t leave much for Crowley to laugh about. 

“No, I would never ditch you.” _Oh wow,_ never _, really? Daring move for a first meet-up, you bloody fuckwit._   
Crowley’s frustration manifested in a wall of rambling.   
“I had this customer that just wouldn’t shut up about his problem with how I kept my tulips. He talked down to me as if I’d never seen a damn flower in my life. You should have seen this, I didn’t get that bloke to stop!” 

“Oh, so you are a florist? I was already wondering.”

“How come?”

Aziraphale’s face was flushed with the shame of someone who had irreversibly said too much. 

“You…err…you smell very fresh. Flowery. Somehow like people once tried to explain the colour green to me. I don’t entirely understand how a colour can have a smell, but…” He faltered for a moment but the warm, cottony smile faintly peeking out from his scarf spoke louder than any words could. “It must be lovely work you’re doing.”

Crowley feared the looming consequences of choking on his own tongue. 

They were just standing there on the spot, looking at each other as Aziraphale’s words and their implications hung over them like stars about to crash down on them. 

“I can tell you more about it inside?” 

Aziraphale’s face lit up with delight. “Ah, yes, please!” 

Together, they went inside. Aziraphale’s walking stick scratched on the floor but Crowley’s mind was too occupied with the fact Aziraphale had said he smelled _flowery_ to give it a single moment’s thought. 

The rather small establishment turned out to be a very cosy place, charming in its attempt to replicate a Mediterranean sense of domesticity and serenity: Ochre walls were lavishly decorated with wistful pictures of the sea, bundles of dried herbs spreading their aromatic scent in the room and with wooden window shutters, old layers of teal paint already peeling off from them. 

“Mister Fell!” When passing by, one waiter came to an abrupt halt and exclaimed sincerely pleased at the sight of Aziraphale. “So nice to see you! How are you? The usual spot, yes?” 

If that hadn’t been explanatory enough, Aziraphale’s reaction – that did not only include a bright, polite smile but also an enquiry about the waiter’s wife and children – told Crowley that Aziraphale obviously had to be a frequent guest. 

The usual spot revealed itself as a round, neatly polished, olive wood table placed under a window. From this side of the building, the sun felt milder, substantial, and Crowley dared to believe it could be a good omen. A meek apology from fate or something. 

Before Crowley could begin to consider some chivalrous gestures in the first place, Aziraphale had already folded his stick and fumbled with his chair. He didn’t touch the menu laying in front of him, simply clasped his hands and smiled down to them. 

Crowley shifted on his chair, unsure whether he should take his menu if Aziraphale didn’t.

“I can really recommend the Tagliata di Manzo – truly superb!”

_Alright. This menu must be Aziraphale’s flower arrangement folder._

“You come here often?”

Aziraphale chuckled at the phrase. 

“Quite so. It’s…hm, it’s comforting to know a place, to be known.” His fingers unfolded and continued to circle around on the rim of the decorative terracotta bowl standing on the table. “And the food’s scrumptious, of course!” 

“What about the thrill of the unknown?”

“The walk to my own kettle is thrilling enough as it is.” 

Crowley leaned a little forward. A toothy, lopsided grin tickled in the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you just need the right company.” 

Aziraphale pursed his lips, fighting against the smitten pull on them. 

“Maybe I do.” 

If it were up to Crowley, their banter (flirting?) would have culminated in some mildly intense eye-contact but Aziraphale never held his gaze for long.   
There wasn’t enough time to dwell on – possibly devastating – reasons for that, though, since another waiter approached them, and Crowley sunk back into his chair. 

Other than the man greeting them with exuberant joy at the door earlier, this young lad didn’t seem to know Aziraphale and moreover, he appeared downright irritated by him: He looked him up and down, unsure how to proceed until he apparently remembered that starring was a rather rude thing to do and nervously made his notepad the centre of his attention instead. 

He asked about Crowley’s order first – Aziraphale’s recommendation, naturally – and when it would have been time to tend to Aziraphale, he simply…didn’t. 

“What about him? What can I bring him?” he asked Crowley, leaving him puzzled and opening and closing his mouth like a fish dropped on land, whereas Aziraphale suddenly appeared so small and bleak that Crowley’s confusion promptly turned into irritation. 

“Why aren’t you asking him yourself?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry…!” The waiter tried his best at some sort of conciliatory gestures but Crowley was already seeing red. “I…I wasn’t sure if he understood-“

“He’s a grown-up man, I’m convinced he’s more than capable of ordering his own food, thank you!” 

“Yes, I’m…Excuse me, sir, please pardon the inconvenience. Of course, I’d love to take your order!”

Hesitantly, Aziraphale hunched his shoulders and after an initial stammer, he gave his order. It wasn’t before the younger man had let another pattering of excuses rain down on them and left towards the kitchen that he spoke again. 

“Thank you,” he said but it was quiet, more apologetic than grateful. 

“It’s alright but, _Hell_ , what was that about?”

“It’s something that just happens from time to time.” Crowley raised his eyebrows in a baffled way but Aziraphale then went on. “Please, let’s not focus on…that. I’d rather talk about your flowers.” 

The quick change in subject matter only evoked gap-filling interjections at first but Crowley respected Aziraphale’s request and decided not to push any further.   
For now. 

“Uhhh, I mean…sure. I fear I’m going to disappoint you, though, there isn’t all too much to talk about.” 

“I don’t believe that. You haven’t been a florist all your adult life, have you?”

“Granted, owning a flower shop has been one of my latest ludicrous ideas, so, no…I’ve always had an interest in plants and floral arrangement but – two, three? – three years ago I’ve just had an ordinary office job. Accounting. You know. Boring. Soul-sucking. Grey, literally. One day I simply decided it wasn’t cutting it for me and I left. I told you, there’s not much to it.”   
Aziraphale didn’t have to learn about the story of how he dropped a bucket of water on his superior’s head the day before his notice just yet. 

“Are you happier with that decision?” 

“Well, I don’t hate going to work and everything revolving it. That’s an improvement if you ask me.” Crowley propped his chin on his hand and watched Aziraphale shake his head amusedly. “Definitely happier. I mean, there are distinct problems when it comes to being a business owner and a florist. For one, I need to wear Enchroma glasses for almost eight hours straight a day, so that’s certainly a royal pain in the arse. Although, I guess that’s something I don’t have to worry about anymore.” 

“Oh, so you’ve got a soulmate?”

Crowley’s heart dropped to his knees. 

So this was it. 

This was the opportunity to own up to everything, to their onesided connection, to Crowley’s prior silence, work something out and-

And the brilliant, gentle spark in Aziraphale’s eyes somehow felt like a punch to his stomach. 

“Um, yeah. Quite recently actually but… it wasn’t meant to be,” Crowley said. His tongue felt like a furry, self-willed beast in his mouth. “Which is weird since…how can something be as meant as having a literal soulmate? I mean-…” He rolled his eyes at himself. ”It’s complicated.” 

“I’m so sorry to hear that, Crowley.” 

Crowley wondered how sorry he’d be for him if he knew the truth. For his liking, the whole debacle was already arousing too much pity in Aziraphale’s voice. Maybe there had also been a pinch of disappointment, a dash of _hope_ in the soft, genuine expression but more probable, Crowley was overthinking this. 

“What about you?” Crowley tried as unruffled as possible to shift the focus away from himself. “I don’t see you wearing any glasses.”

“Right,” Aziraphale chuckled, “they don’t suit me, you know.” His smile, playfully conceited, told Crowley that Aziraphale was making a joke. Crowley didn’t get it but laughed nonetheless.   
“I’ve never owned a pair, not even before…well,” he continued, his voice died down slowly and was replaced by some vague hand signs. “No, my parents were very traditionalist people who believed you shouldn’t see a single glimpse of colour until you’ve actually met your soulmate. I’ve never got a chance. Nor soulmate.” 

“Oh.”

“Although!” Aziraphale then interjected and his soft facial features crumbled into something new, something cheeky and brightened up by almost childish joy. “There’s been this one time…” Crowley’s heart did a thrilled flip at that sight. “Back then when I was a child, I loved to read. Still do, I dearly wish I could do nothing but reading, but that’s beside the point-…Anyway, when I was about twelve years old, I read one of these romance novels my mother had always kept hidden away from me.”

“Which had made you want to read them even more, right?” 

Aziraphale didn’t reply audibly but his perky little wiggle spoke heat-inducing volumes for Crowley. 

“It had been quite _saucy_ and definitely inappropriate for a child and still, I had devoured it like any other book but in this one, oh…” The furrow of his brow eased and his pale blue eyes swelled with warmth, opaque as if captured in a dream. “There was this one passage in which the male protagonist merely described his lover’s hair. I will never forget the sheer amount of love and affection that poured out of those words, words that always led back to this one colour. He said it was the colour of the sun piercing stubbornly through his closed eyelids, the colour of cherry juice biting into his fingertips as a sweet reminder of their priorly shared, fruity kiss.” 

He hummed with such relish Crowley questioned if he possibly could have ever encountered a colour so beautiful. 

“I was so fascinated, I wanted- _needed_ to know what this colour looked like that had him so enchanted. So, I lent some glasses from a friend of mine, bought a piece of carton, hid in my room and…and I just looked at it. And until my last day, it will be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“Red,” Crowley croaked, “yeah. That’s a good one.”

Aziraphale laughed sweetly. “In my childish fantasies and, admittedly, even a long time after, I had always hoped my soulmate would have red hair. Just so I could look at it, never stop looking at it…” 

Crowley was entirely overwhelmed by the flashes of uncontrollable admiration searing in his chest and the cold of the blatant unfairness of it all numbing his limbs. 

“I have red hair.” 

“Oh, you do?” Aziraphale blushed. “I wouldn’t know.” 

“Yeah, obviously," he deadpanned. 

The heat of their conversation cooled a little down due to a few awkward chuckles and the arrival of their drinks. 

Dissatisfied with that development, Crowley bit his bottom lip. 

“Well, I always had something for blue eyes.” 

“Huh?” It took Aziraphale a few seconds but as he realised what Crowley had insinuated, he almost knocked his glass of cider over. “Ah right, I remember.” 

Crowley couldn’t imagine what it must be like to know about one’s own appearances through others' reports only. 

“When I was a kid, I always said blue was my favourite colour although I didn’t know what it looked like at that time. I just liked its sound, how it rolled from my tongue,” he told Aziraphale and snorted a little self-ironically.   
“Blue,” he articulated exaggeratedly.

“Blue,” Aziraphale joined in, and for a few seconds, they voiced bilabial, plosive sounds to one another as if they’ve just learnt to talk. 

Crowley was the first one to break it off, chuckling. “Couldn’t have possibly imagined how beautiful it would actually turn out to be. I’m surprised by it every day.” 

Aziraphale looked so indescribably gorgeous with his cheeks painted tenderly by their shared laughter and the radiant look in his blue, _so, so blue_ eyes.

“Especially right now.” Crowley clinked his glass against Aziraphale’s. “To blue eyes?”

Aziraphale carefully picked up his beverage. “And red hair.” 

“Well said.”

Throughout their meal that also arrived soon after, they continued to get absorbed into their dialogue; their streams of conversation effortlessly went on forever and even if they seemed to have reached an impasse, it was never difficult to revive their gushing fountain with a quick tease. Crowley felt like they’ve been knowing and talking to each other for years; considerably hypocritical of him since every time someone else was similarly referring to their soulmate, Crowley had to suppress the urge to gag. 

When they had finished, Aziraphale proved himself to be adamant about paying, (“After all, this is my payback, dear boy, remember?”) whereupon they found themselves standing outside under the arch covered in healthy leaves again.

All at once, neither of them was talking again but this time it was clear that it was because no one wanted to be the first one to say goodbye. 

“So…?” Crowley blurted at some point, shifting his weight from one lanky leg to the other. 

“I was wondering…” Aziraphale picked up Crowley’s courageous but measly efforts. “Do you want to go on a small walk? My bus isn’t due for another half an hour and I-…Well, I do like talking to you.” 

_Oh, thank someone._ “Sure! I’d drive you myself but I left my car at home today. You’d love her, she’s a beauty.” 

“She?” Aziraphale asked and tucked his arm into Crowley’s for support, unannounced and so naturally as if they’ve never done differently before. It was a piece of strenuous self-control not to faint on the spot. “Is she also a victim of your questionable naming skills? Let me guess: ‘Car-ly’?”

“Oi! Someone was just permanently banned to the back seat!”, Crowley feigned his indignation, and arm in arm, they started to walk. 

Their stroll through town must have been the quickest thirty minutes of Crowley’s life. He felt foolishly disappointed as soon as he spotted the sign of the bus stop Aziraphale had asked him to lead them to. His steps slowed down.

“We’re here already?” Aziraphale asked, a little defeated himself, and then pulled away to draw his odd stick out of his pockets and unfold it like a pointer. Crowley was trapped in the fight against the pathetic set of words that his worries had given birth to inside his head and that were now going on a full rampage there. 

“Aziraphale, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” The addressed tilted his head. “What is it?”

Taking a deep breath, Crowley looked down to the shiny, pointy toes of his shoes. 

“I mean…You don’t mind…I mean, obviously, you don’t, otherwise, we wouldn’t be here and…but…”

“Crowley, dear, I can’t make out any word you’re saying-“

“I just had a really nice day. And I want to see you again. My point is…no, there is no point, so…You don’t mind we’re not soulmates?” 

At this point, Crowley was too deep into his lies. Did telling him _really_ matter anymore? 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale mumbled after a few seconds of silent contemplation, his voice calm and devoid of any impatience, “do you know why I wanted to meet you again?”

“My impeccable looks?”

He laughed softly. 

“I liked the way your hand fit into mine.” 

Crowley looked up, blinking expectantly. 

“So, that’s a-…”

Aziraphale took his hand demonstratively and let his thumb brush over Crowley’s knuckles in gentle circles. 

“-…ah, alright. Cool. Yep.” 

“Very ‘cool’, indeed.” 

The approaching bus caused a slight commotion in the other groups of people waiting.

“I’ll call you, alright?” Aziraphale said, squeezing the daintier hand in his own. 

“Yeah. Take care of yourself.” 

They let go of each other, and Crowley watched Aziraphale get into the bus. Inside, someone offered his seat to him. 

Maybe this could work just fine. 

Crowley smiled and shoved his hands into his pockets. Aziraphale’s warmth was still lingering on him. 

Maybe he could be in control of his own destiny after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♥♥♥Thank you so much for reading!!! ♥♥♥

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading ♥


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